


A Matter of Trust

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, First Meetings, Pre-Canon, Protective Clint Barton, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 03:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Clint kept Laura from Natasha for the first two years. Which was fair, he always told himself at the time, because he kept Laura from everyone but Fury and Coulson. Plus, Natasha was an assassin. A trained spy. A girl with quite questionable ethics.But sometimes different choices have to be made.





	A Matter of Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karmageddon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karmageddon/gifts).



> Written for Karmageddon for the All in the Family 2017 exchange. This was inspired by the prompt 'Does Natasha make sure Clint is a good husband?', but it took a little turn as I was writing it. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Natasha wiped her hands off on her catsuit and surveyed the remains of the battle. Clint followed her eyes. Bodies everywhere. Blood everywhere. He turned back to Natasha as she slipped the flash drive, with all the contents she had managed to secure, inside her suit and turned to Clint with a grin.

“The building’s still standing,” she said.

He laughed. “Yup, we did good.” He clasped her on the shoulder. “Let’s go home, kid.”

She shook her head. “No, you go home. Laura’s got work for you. That nursery isn’t going to paint itself.”

Clint grimaced. Laura had been hounding him about that nursery for weeks, even if the due date for their second child was still more than three months away. “Do you two always have to compare notes?” he sighed. “Sometimes it’s like I have two wives.”

Natasha shrugged, turning to weave her way through the bodies to the exit. “Someone’s got to keep you in line!” she called back over her shoulder.

“You could come too,” Clint said, following her out. “Laura loves you, too.”

“I’m not paining, Barton. Don’t even try!”

“Huh,” Clint grumbled. “That’s what Laura said, too.”

•••

Clint kept Laura from Natasha for the first two years. Which was fair, he always told himself at the time, because he kept Laura from everyone but Fury and Coulson. None of the partners he’d had before Natasha had any idea that his weekends in the woods with time to himself were really trips home to be with his family. Plus, she was an assassin. A trained spy. A girl with quite questionable ethics. 

It was one thing to trust that she had the capability of making the right choice, another to trust that she had his back in the field and wouldn’t betray him, but it was an entirely different thing altogether to trust her with his family.

It came to a head after a mission gone wrong. It was supposed to be a quick in and out. Gather intel and head back to headquarters. That had been the plan, but none of that had happened. They’d been ambushed. Men with Russian accents who pulled guns on him and pulled her aside.

For a second he looked at her, for even less time than that he wondered. But he could tell by the look in her eyes — even through the blank stare she wore on her face — that this wasn’t anything she knew about. He’d nodded at her, signaling a plan, and with her help, they’d fought through the men and made their escape, but she had seen his initial reaction, had read that one second of doubt he’d had.

She was quiet on the Quinjet ride back. Quieter than normal anyway. Sitting curled into herself at a seat by the window, staring out over the tops of the clouds.

He dropped down beside her. “You okay?”

She looked over at him, leveled him with a completely neutral expression. 

“You don’t trust me,” she said simply, as if she were stating something so obvious she might have been telling him the earth was round. She didn’t wait for him to deny it or protest it — maybe she knew he wouldn’t — before turning back to the window.

He mulled her words over for a long time. He wanted to trust her, he did trust her, but there was just something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Laura said that night after dinner, sitting wrapped up together on the front porch, watching the stars twinkling in the sky above, “even though there is no other shoe.”

“You don’t know that,” Clint tried to argue, but only for the sake of arguing. He had a feeling his wife was right. 

“You said yourself she hasn’t done anything that would make you doubt her.”

“She hasn’t,” Clint allowed. “She’s not very forthcoming though.”

“Do you expect her to be? She was trained to keep secrets.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Clint said, tightening his arms around his wife.

“Maybe,” Laura said quietly, turning her head to the side so she could peck Clint on the lips the same time she squeezed his hand gently, “she’s just never had anyone who’s trusted her with theirs.”

It was a solid point. And a week later, Clint found himself walking up to Natasha after a brutal sparring session. She’d definitely been hitting him harder than normal ever since he had returned to headquarters — the intense pain in his jaw was proof of that — but outside of training, she had been staying away from him. He knew the fact that she thought he didn’t trust her was bothering her more than she would ever admit to anyone.

“Come with me,” he told her. “I want to show you something.”

She eyed him warily, as though she thought he might be leading her into a trap and secretly trying to kill her.

He used her doubts against her. “Do you trust me?” he asked quietly, and he waited, watching the micro expressions on her face while she tried to figure out exactly what he wanted with her.

Finally, she must have decided to go with her instincts because she nodded. “Yes,” she said, and he could hear the genuineness in her words as well as see it in her eyes.

He knew it must have taken a lot for her to admit that, especially considering she didn’t think the opposite. It also made him grateful he had Laura to help him see what he needed to do.

He led Natasha down a bunch of halls, finally arriving at the small room he lived in when he was at SHIELD and not at home. He used the palm print scanner to access his room, opening the door and ushering her in.

He watched her look around, at the dirty coffee cup in the sink and the bed he hadn’t bothered to make, his clothes around the room in piles.

She wrinkled her nose, just slightly, but enough that he saw it.

“What else do you see, Nat?” he said softly. She glanced at him, and he could see she still didn’t quite know what to make of everything, but she turned back to face the room, walking to the small area where he had bookshelves crammed with books and papers. And photos.

Her eyes landed on them — the frames filled with pictures of him and Laura and baby Cooper. She stared at them for a long time before she finally turned to him, waiting for him to talk.

“No one knows,” he told her. “Except for Fury and Coulson. And now you.”

She took that in. “Why?” she finally said, her voice quiet.

“Because I want you to know I trust you. Because I do. Trust you.”

“You have a family,” she said, saying the words out loud like she couldn’t quite believe it.

“I do,” Clint said. “And they want to meet you.”

“They want to meet me?”

“Yes, they do. Laura — my wife — I think she’s going to like you.”

Natasha looked unsure. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t have to know,” Clint told her, “because I do. All you have to do is trust me.”

Natasha glanced back at the photo of Laura and the baby.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I can do that.”


End file.
